Odds and Ends — 29 November 2023

@preparedwombat 76

6 months ago

oddsandends

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:

https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1729490046632239511?s=20

Bitcoin mining could supercharge transition to renewables, study claims

COP28 and Bitcoin: The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship?

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

New CDC life expectancy data shows painfully slow rebound from covid

Florida Man:

Ron DeSantis Never Caught Fire. Now It’s Catching Up to Him.

With time running out to change the dynamic of his stalling White House bid, the Florida governor’s operation is instead doing the same things over again.

Politics:

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1729506239078453700?s=20

Pence Told Special Counsel of His Warnings to Trump

Speaking with special counsel Jack Smith’s team earlier this year, former Vice President Mike Pence offered harrowing details about how, in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, then-President Donald Trump surrounded himself with “crank” attorneys, espoused ‘un-American’ legal theories, and almost pushed the country toward a ‘constitutional crisis.’
The sources said Pence also told investigators he’s ‘sure’ that — in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob tried to stop Congress from certifying the election — he informed Trump he still hadn’t seen evidence of significant election fraud, but Trump was unmoved, continuing to claim the election was ‘stolen’ and acting ‘recklessly’ on that ‘tragic day.’

https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1729464840891105452?s=20

Trump Plans First Amendment Defense in Georgia Case

Donald Trump will defend himself against charges that he illegally sought to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia by arguing his claims about voting fraud were ‘core political speech’ protected by the First Amendment.
In a filing on Monday in Fulton County Superior Court, Trump attorney Steven Sadow said the former president will challenge his indictment on racketeering, conspiracy and other charges by asserting his right to political speech and expressive conduct…
In Monday’s court filing, Sadow argued the judge can consider a pre-trial First Amendment challenge if the facts laid out in the indictment are not disputed by the defendants. To pursue such a defense, Trump presumably would have to acknowledge his voting fraud claims were false.

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one on TV, but that argument seems to be a loser. If Joe Sixpack yells “Fire!” In a crowded theater, later acknowledging that his claim was false wouldn’t help his defense.

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1729574353476739100?s=20

Georgia prosecutors oppose plea deals for Trump, Meadows and Giuliani

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1729520291897053438?s=20

Major news outlets gave much less coverage to Trump’s “vermin” attack than they did Clinton’s “deplorables” remark

https://twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1729504621167608045?s=20

The Shit Bowl

What has the press hyperventilating about Haley is not her relative rise in the national polls over the past month (about two percentage points), or the fact that she’s drawing even with DeSantis in Iowa. Nor is it the remote possibility that she’ll eclipse former President Trump. No, what’s causing the swoon is her uphill climb to defeat DeSantis for the meaningless position as the second-place finisher in the race.
Her quest resembles the NFL’s Playoff Bowl, which started in 1960 and matched the second-place division finishers against one another for the useless crown as the third-place team in the league. The game, last contested in 1969 before it was retired in disgrace, was called ‘The Shit Bowl’ by Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi — a ‘hinky-dink football game, held in a hinky-dink town, played by hinky-dink players.’
That the press seems to thrill at the prospect of a Playoff Bowl between Haley (9.8 percent in the latest Real Clear Politics polling average) and DeSantis (13.7 percent), when first-placer Donald Trump (61.6 percent) seems destined to face Joe Biden in the championship game, is not to paint reporters with hinky-dinkness, only to suggest it.

The Dead Hand of the Trump Administration Is Still Strangling the Right to Vote

Trump’s judges keep defying a surprise Supreme Court decision protecting multiracial democracy.

https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1729572692167450789?s=20

Why Netanyahu Loves Antisemites Like Elon Musk So Much

Nothing says guilty quite like tampering with evidence:

https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1729586054015889416?s=20

Elon Musk boosts Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led to D.C. gunfire

https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/status/1729506184791458266?s=20

Putin Won’t Make Peace in Ukraine Before 2024 Election

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not make peace in Ukraine before he knows the results of the November 2024 U.S. election, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday, amid concerns that a potential victory for former President Donald Trump could upend Western support for Kyiv.
Trump, who is seeking reelection in 2024 and is the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has been sharply critical of U.S. support for Kyiv.

https://twitter.com/acnewsitics/status/1729655457382318205?s=20

Reports Say Pope Francis Is Evicting U.S. Cardinal From His Vatican Home

Almost as soon as Pope Francis became the head of the Roman Catholic church in 2013, Raymond Burke, an American cardinal, emerged as his leading critic from within the church, becoming a de facto antipope for frustrated traditionalists who believed Francis was diluting doctrine.
Francis frequently demoted and stripped the American cleric of influence, but this month, the pope apparently finally had enough… Francis told a meeting of high-ranking Vatican officials that he intended to throw the cardinal out of his Vatican-subsidized apartment and deprive him of his salary as a retired cardinal.

https://twitter.com/BlackKnight10k/status/1729678786780610759?s=20